For those who loathed or loved last winter’s non-wintery Alaska weather, climate scientists have an important message: There is a good chance of a repeat this winter… Forces at sea, in the atmosphere and on land, both short-term and long-term, are combining to create what might be a perfect storm of heat for Alaska. That means another much-warmer-than-normal winter is expected for Alaska and northwestern North America… “As you lose that ice, then you’re allowing a lot more evaporation. That extreme water vapor into the Arctic atmosphere has a huge impact,” said Jennifer Francis, a Rutgers University climate scientist and meteorologist who has been studying potential links between Arctic warming and weather extremes in temperate latitudes.

The Northern Hemisphere had a near-record low snow cover in June, especially in western Canada and Alaska, and the drier landscape is likely feeding widespread wildfires this season, scientists said. The snow cover was the second-lowest for June in the…